Karl "Hair10" Markovich was one of the earliest HeroClix rules arbiter for Wizkids for many years. He's since left the world of arbiting, but his legacy still stands. We sit down with Karl to get his thoughts on HeroClix, and more.

The Le: So what exactly was your role at Wizkids?

Hair10: I was the HeroClix Rules Arbitrator. Technically I wasn't "at" WK since it is a volunteer position. My job was to consult with the game designers on questions that came up about rules and rules interactions, pass along a decision about those questions, document many of them in the FAQ, write the errata documentation, review upcoming "stuff" such as rulebooks, be involved in playtesting, answer questions on the WK forums (both in the rules section and in the judges forum), and travel to the various WK attended conventions and run the tournament hall which included everything from setting up events to managing the envoys there to running the Invitational/National/Championship/whatever-name-it-was-this-year type of events.

The Le: How did you get there exactly?

Hair10: The previous rules arb, Dr. Gandalf, stepped aside for personal reasons. If I recall, he just got busy with school and such and couldn't devote the time to do it anymore. WK posted an open application to all envoys for the rules arb position. On a lark, I applied but I never expected to get the job or even be considered. I've always been rather... outspoken about things when I disagree with policies. This had already earned me one banning on the envoy forums so I figured there was no way I'd ever get the job. So I applied as kind of a "haha, I hope you get a good chuckle out of this one WK staffers" kind of deal (incidently, I did the exact same thing for the exact same reason after I was 'let go' and WK put out another open application for a rules arb! :-p). Needless to say, I about fell out of my chair when I got the call from WK to tell me that I was being considered.

The Le: How much input did you have with the rules interpretations?

Hair10: Quite a bit, actually. There were many times where Seth and I didn't agree about the way a particular ruling should go. We'd go back and forth and I'd try and lay out the pros and cons of each argument. Sometimes he'd over-rule me but there were other times when he came around to my way of seeing it. Not that we always disagreed, but when we did he was always willing to listen. A lot of stuff was often what I considered "no-brainers", either because of specific wording or, when wording was insufficent, intent. In many of those cases I simply made the decision without even bothering Seth with it.

The one area where I would have liked to have more input was in the rulebooks. I never got to see them until they were in their final form (I was told this was due to tight deadlines by editors and proof readers and such). By then it was too late to make changes. All I could do was prepare a future errata for whatever ended up being wrong in the rulebook. I always hated that. I felt that if I could have seen it earlier, before it was finalized, we could have avoided some of the problems that the rulebooks always seemed to have.